Turnips, Spinach, Hen, and AA Turkey (for some misguided reason I added a review of a pretty good economy class purchased meal to a post about January root vegetables – scroll to the end if you are interested in the review)

Scoring American Airlines Meals

I rated each course (appetizer, salad, entree, and dessert – only counting the “AA cookie” once) of the meal on a 5 point scale:

Yuck

Eh

OK

Good

Great

I avoid morning flights so no breakfast reviews.

The total scores are:

The average score for the appetizer is 2.91 which we can round up to a mere OK.

The average score for the salad is 2.22 which is an Eh. For a salad.

The average score for the entree is 2.5 which is right between Eh and OK. And remember this is first class.

The average score for dessert is 3.5 which is right between OK and good. Except I only counted the AA cookie once.

So let us take a look at 2016/2015 American Airlines meals. I did not repeat reviews when I had the same meal more than once because generally the rating did not change. Final thoughts (and solutions) are at the end of the post.

Entree – Eh – Although the taste was acceptable, I have no idea how they make lasagna so sticky and dense. The roll was stale.

Appetizer – eggplant and olives? Salad – Green salad with dried peppers and thin sliced cheese Entree – chicken tapenade and polentaA closer look at the appetizer. If American Airlines wanted to be thematic, they could have served this in one of the bags in the seatback pocket.

Appetizer – Yuck. The other passengers bonded trying to figure out what it was.

Appetizer – Good. Prosciutto and melon is consistently good. This one had a generous amount of prosciutto.

Salad – Eh. Mediocre produce.

Entree – Eh – The beef was overcooked a bit, the potatoes were OK, and the beans were mushy.

Conclusions and Suggestions

American Airlines needs to at least try to improve their first class meal service. They seem to want customers to accept the unacceptable.

Flight attendants should be aware of what the meals contains (or be given a menu card to read or show to passengers). Descriptions like “protein or pasta” or “chicken or salad” shows how the corporate attitude of not caring about the meals has permeated the organization.

“Guest chefs” should see the quality that is attached to their names. You hear that Julian Barsotti? (Hey, have him fly and eat his meals as presented by the flight attendants on Undercover Boss – that would be a great episode).

There has been one significant upgrade to the beverage service in the last few years – the addition of Woodsford Reserve as a true bourbon on the bar menu.

The idea that first class is full of people with unpaid upgrades so its OK is just false. Believe me, we pay one way or another for those upgrades and therefore should be given a first class experience – including the food.

As much as the domestic airlines want to think that passengers do not care about meals, they are wrong. Any behavior they see is probably a form of learned helplessness.

In the 1990s, the beef was tender and medium to rare, they served the roasted chicken supreme, and the consistent quality was good. Don’t blame 2001 because……

This is from Air Vanuatu Economy Class. It tasted very good, flavorful, fresh, and complete. With great respect to Air Vanuatu, if they can serve a meal like this in economy then certainly American can do better in first class.

Beef with vegetables and tree nuts in a tangy brown sauce, white rice, mixed beans and carrots, with a crisp salad, fresh roll, and packaged cookie.

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16 thoughts on “American Airlines First Class Domestic Meals”

Airplane food is notoriously bad, though I think most people in economy class would kill for a meal like that. I just flew Finnair business class last week from China to Amsterdam and the wines were amazing, but the main course was disappointing.

Thanks for the comment. Yes granted people in economy would kill for a meal like this (they get a bag of pretzels and they can buy food on the plane), but people in first class are paying a premium which includes a less crowded cabin, complementary alcoholic drinks, and a meal.

If you took a picture of your meal on Finnair or even recall the menu, I am sure some would be interested in your review and rating of it on your site. Or happy to have you review Finnair business class on my site as I have never flown them.

Yes, I think you’re right on the money their. If you pay for a Prada suit and a button falls off within a week you wouldn’t be happy either, but if it happens at Old Navy nobody would care. I do have pictures. Let me see what I can rustle up.

My apologies to my readers for using ‘desert’ scattered throughout this post instead of ‘dessert’ – the barren, sandy ‘desert’ has now been corrected to the sweet ‘dessert’ throughout the post. As Sister Shawn Marie once said in grade school: “You can eat your dessert in the desert, but you can’t eat the desert.” Bill – if you are reading this you can be proud of me for finding my error before anyone told me about it.

Paul.
Would you please clarify.
These meals were on domestic flights??
I fly AA often internationally in business and the meals lately are horrible but do look and sound like what you’ve described
I’m not sure why they’ve gone away from some basics and polenta is now on most meals. — guess $$$ plays into it
Agree on the pasta 🍝 meals as dense
But usually least overcooked – chicken n beef could be used for shoe leather.
I agree the $$$$ of business/first is significantly higher than coach and room and ability to sleep is part of that – I should think AA could spend a little bit more and provide better food and training for the FAs. I’ve had several times had them say chicken or beef ?
when there wasn’t those options
I do pre-order my food when I can
However the choices usually are between hmmmmm and ughhhhhh

I couldn’t agree more with this article. Every one of the 12 AA F/J flights that I’ve taken this year had very bland or stale food. The worst dish that was served was definitely the so-called lasagna that was partially cold in the middle.
The other carriers that I’ve flown (Alaska and Virgin America) have served terrific meals in F, but AA has beaten all of the domestic carriers to the bottom.
You can thank the US Airways cancer (e.g. management) for this. I cannot believe that a sub-standard product is considered to be desirable by them.

American has stopped caring about customer satisfaction in almost all regards
From its Frequent flyer program to award availability to its inferior food and beverage service
Qantas is a worldwide role model and had devoted a fortune to quality food and beverage service standards
Yes I buy Qantas premium cabin tickets over many of their competitors
American is still figuring out if they should put one slice of or two of compressed turkey roll on a soggy stale roll
They are so stingy they serve fragments /scatterrd pieces of nuts or seconds instead of whole mixed nuts

But Americans bigger problem than disgusting low quality food
Is their lack of saver awards and for that reason I’m back at United Alaska jet blue mint and virgin
American thinks we are foolish enough to keep flying no matter what they do

I missed a review of the breakfast items. I know others might disagree but the other day on a CLT – PHX flight I got the egg croissant and I enjoyed it quite a bit. In general though I agree that AA’s first class meals are ho-hum.

I did not to review breakfast items because I almost never take morning flights (I am so not a morning person) so only had 1 data point. Among the higher rated call-outs I had was the deviled eggs – have not seen them in a while but perhaps we put eggs on the list of things done well. I do not know if cheese blintzes are on the menu anymore but the back in the day they were very good.